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In a shocking breach of security, a suicide bomber posing as a paramilitary
soldier blew himself up Monday inside the heavily fortified offices of the
United Nations World Food Program (WFP) in a tightly controlled part of the
Pakistani capital of Islamabad, killing at least five of the humanitarian
agency's staff, Pakistani officials said.

The bombing, the latest in a series of troubling attacks on foreign aid
workers in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent months, came as the Pakistani
army is poised to mount a fresh ground offensive in the South Waziristan
tribal area against the country's most fearsome al-Qaeda-linked Taliban
militants. It also followed a vow by the Pakistani Taliban leader,
Hakimullah Mehsud, on Sunday to mount revenge attacks for the killing of the
group's former leader in a U.S. air strike two months ago. Addressing
Pakistan's parliament after the bombing, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said
that although security had been stepped up across the country, "we should
expect a few more [attacks like this]." (See pictures of refugees fleeing fighting in the Swat Valley.)

The bomber in Monday's attack was nothing if not brazen. Malik told
reporters gathered in front of the damaged building that
the man had worn a military uniform and managed to get past guards at the
WFP building by pleading with them to use the bathroom. The attack was made
all the more surprising by the setting  President Asif Ali Zardari's private
residence is located across the street from the WFP office  as well as the
elaborate security measures that were put in place after last year's
devastating bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which killed 60
people. Security officials installed high blast walls, thick iron gates and
a fence topped with razor wire around the WFP building. Barriers were also
set up at both ends of the street and manned with armed guards.

After slipping into the building, officials said the attacker detonated his
explosive in the lobby just after noon, when about 100 staff members were at
work. "There was a loud blast, a flash of light and the windows shattered,"
Dominique Frankefourt, the WFP's deputy country director, told TIME. "I was
on the first floor of the two-story building. I told everyone to get out as
quickly as possible. But when I came down to the ground floor, there were
people lying on the floor who could not move." Four of those killed were
Pakistani; the fifth victim was an Iraqi. (See pictures of Pakistan beneath the surface.)

Over the past few years, foreign aid workers have increasingly become the
targets of attacks in the region as militants have tried to drive relief
programs out of the area. Earlier this year, a 21-year-old Afghan fighter who
had trained in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan province, tried
to kill four American aid workers in a car bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
After his arrest, Shafiq Shah gave an interview to TIME in a Kabul prison in
which he described the indoctrination that young fighters receive concerning
the role of foreign aid workers. "[Muslim aid recipients] shouldn't eat
infidel food," Shah said. "God gave us everything we need. We have bodies
and hands and eyes and community  why can't those people work and get their
own food? They shouldn't take anything from infidels." (Read "Are Development Dollars in Pakistan Being Well Spent?")

The U.N. has been a favorite target of insurgents. In February, John Solecki, the head of the U.N. refugee
agency's office in Baluchistan, was kidnapped by Baluch separatist fighters
and held for two months before being released. In June, the U.N. was
forced to pull its staff out of Peshawar, the capital of the lawless
North-West Frontier Province, after a vehicle laden with explosives slammed
into the side of a hotel in the city, killing 17 people. Just hours after
Monday's attack, the U.N. said all of its offices in Islamabad would be
closed indefinitely. That could severely hamper relief efforts just when
refugees need it most. The WFP has been coordinating the distribution of
food and other relief supplies to more than 2 million people who had fled
the fighting between the Pakistani army and insurgents in the Swat Valley of
the North-West Frontier Province this summer as well as organizing
development projects throughout the country. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable North-West Frontier Province.)

The Pakistani Taliban was thought to have been weakened when the group's
former commander, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone attack on
Aug. 5. Pakistani military officials have told TIME that "conditions in
South Waziristan" are now ripe for a ground offensive to eliminate what
remains of the Mehsud network and their allies there. But they warn that it
will be "very bloody," possibly leading to further revenge attacks in
Pakistan. There are an estimated 10,000 well-trained fighters still in South
Waziristan, and their new leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, has warned of fresh
violence. He appeared at a press conference in the remote South Waziristan
village of Sara Rogha on Sunday and vowed to seek revenge for the slaying of
Baitullah Mehsud, a distant relative. (Read "How Washington Will Measure Pakistan's Success.")

Pakistan does not appear to be ready to take on the full array of militants
in the region, though. The army has reaffirmed non-aggression pacts with
Mullah Nazir, a commander based in South Waziristan along the Afghan border,
and Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan. The Haqqani network is also
expected to remain passive during the imminent army operation. While it may
ease Pakistan's task in South Waziristan, the deals will afford little
comfort to U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan. All three militant
commanders continue to mount cross-border attacks on U.S. and NATO troops
there.